John Zeppetelli: Construction Ahead – Canadian Art The security guard has a gift for John Zeppetelli in his new office at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. It is Zeppetelli’s 52nd birthday and his wife has sent him a sculptural arrangement of live, ornamental artichokes. It is early September and Zeppetelli has been director and chief curator of the MACM for less than a month. Canadian Art, December 16, 2013

Detroit awaits direction on options to art gallery sell-off Detroit may have to rely on the generosity of strangers to keep its impressive art collection that was amassed with taxpayer dollars in better times. The bankrupt city is expected to learn this week the value of roughly 2,800 of its pieces at the Detroit Institute of Arts when New York auction house Christie’s delivers its final report to Kevin Orr, the state-appointed emergency manager who runs the Motor City’s finances. CBC, December 16, 2013

New York

Peter Doig: Continental Drifter – Canadian Art Peter Doig, now 54, was born in Edinburgh, the son of a Sri Lanka–born Scots accountant employed by an international shipping company. Thus, he entered life an inheritor of that colonial legacy. Yet the intervening half-century has afforded him the chance to witness the shift from colonialism to global capitalism, and the resulting accelerations of cultural convergence that have come with it. Canadian Art, December 13, 2013

Roland Paoletti, 82, Architect Of London’s Jubilee Line “The inside story of Paoletti’s career is more remarkable, proving that enduring public architecture at its best depends on a balance of personal strength, technical gumption, steadfast collaboration and a sharp sense of opportunity and tactics.” The Guardian (UK) December 15, 2013

Art In 2013 – Only For The Rich? “Art and critical thinking, yes. Art and enchantment, for certain. Without both, or without either, art and its encircling vocation of criticism risk irrelevance. A bigger problem is the culture of prohibitions we seem to be engendering against creativity.” Adobe Airstream, December 17, 2013